Page 48 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club
In the face of the peanut-spray, the hint ofbody odour and Fraser’s general Fraser-ness, nobody seemed to feel able to say,How nice you are and how you’ll easily find a girlfriend. Fraser was definitely one of those people that you can think fondly of when they’re not present, but whose reality gives you second and third thoughts.
‘Annie,’ I said. ‘Now she’s got her happy valentine after all.’
‘Oh yeah. And you’re shagging Flynn, and I’ve got the gym – just got to set these two up and we can all die happy.’ Fraser waved a salty finger at Margot and Wren, who stared blankly at him. I absolutely didnotsay what I’d been thinking about Wren and him setting up home together. Nobody should have that kind of idea put in their heads.
Flynn dropped his head and was trying not to smile. Margot kicked over her handbag and had to bend down under the table to pick it back up again and I felt my entire face go so hot that the peanuts were in for another roasting.
‘What?’ Fraser stared around us again. ‘Am I not supposed to know that these two are banging? Bloody hellfire, it’s like a f—it’s like a romantic novel in here some days, with them gazing in each other’s eyes and trailing hands and all. My Mum reads Mills & Boon books,’ he ended proudly. ‘Out loud.’
‘And we are all very happy for you.’ Margot glared at him.
‘I wants you to get married,’ Fraser went on, completely unabashed and covered in peanut crumbs. ‘I loves a good wedding. Great food and I gets to throw some shapes on the dance floor.’
‘I think we might be a way off that yet,’ Flynn said faintly. ‘But it’s an idea.’
Two men came in through the door at that point and Flynn had to get up to serve them, which was good for my blood pressure and the tone of the conversation. I told the club about my idea of becoming a private investigator, which they all approvedheartily, and Wren said that she’d followed Margot’s example and joined a dating agency.
‘Honestly, it’s fairly slim pickings on there on the gay side,’ she said. ‘But I thought it was worth a try. I can’t live alone for the rest of my life and I don’t much like cats. It’s been lovely staying with you, Margot, and thank you so much for putting me up, but I can’t keep you from your own love life forever by being the gooseberry in the living room!’
‘How’re you getting on on that site then?’ Fraser nudged Margot in a particularly ‘matey’ way. ‘Anything worth shagging? Anything you’reactuallyshagging?’
Margot got bubbles from her tonic water up her nose and started a coughing fit at that point, which made her go very red and her eyes started to water. Fraser clapped her on the back so hard that she kicked her handbag over again.
‘I havecontactedone or two very nice gentlemen,’ Margot finally managed. ‘They all seem very keen to meet. I’ve not found the time to arrange an actual date yet.’
‘So no shagging yet then,’ Fraser said cheerfully. ‘Join the club. Oh, not this club, I mean the one where there’s no shagging. The shagging one’s reserved for these two.’ He gave Flynn and me a look that crinkled at the edges with envy.
Margot stared into the final remaining bubbles of her drink. ‘They all seem a littletookeen,’ she said. I wasn’t quite sure what tone her voice held. It sounded a little wistful. ‘It makes one slightly suspicious of their eagerness, so I am taking my time. Choosing wisely, you know.’
‘You are so right,’ Wren chimed in. ‘I don’t want to fall into another relationship like I had with Jordan. This time round I want to take my time, be friends first; Jordan and I got serious very quickly and I think that was my mistake.’
Over at the bar, Flynn was in conversationwith the two men, who had bought a glass of wine each and were drinking quickly, a sports bag on the bar between them. He saw me look over and winked, then mouthedtwo minutesat me. I didn’t know why. He was working, it wasn’t as though he’d excused himself to wander the high street, accosting women. I smiled back.
Outside, the night was leaning in through the windows as though pulled in by the light. I watched Flynn bid the two men good evening as they drained their wine glasses and hurried off to whatever business summoned them. Flynn headed off towards the back room, possibly to fetch more glasses, and I had one of those moments where I felt as though I were existing in the closing titles of a film. Everyone was happy. I had a gorgeous boyfriend and the hope of a new life. Summer was coming, slowly this far north, but definitely advancing on us, as evidenced by the recent crop of hanging baskets and new planting around roundabouts and road verges. My family had been shown that I could have a wonderful future and was far from the loser status that had been attributed to me almost as soon as I was born. They might think I had to rent it by the hour, but it was still more future than they had, stuck in that little house, re-enacting the rituals they’d been set in forever. I had Flynn and I was free.
Any minute now, the titles would roll, the screen would be bathed in a golden glow and we’d all hasten off to our new futures, I thought, leaning back with a satisfied sigh and watching Wren mopping Margot down with a handful of tissues while Fraser carried on eating peanuts as though we were about to whip the bowl out from under his hand. I half-noticed that the men who’d left in such a hurry had put their sports bag on the floor and forgotten it, and the thought of them having to turn around and come back made me smile. More haste, less speed, I thought, lifting my glass of juice to finish it.
And then the bomb went off.
18
Of course, I didn’t know it was a bomb. At first it was just a noise, as though a car had driven straight into the windows of the wine bar, a tremendous roaring and crashing. Then there was something that felt as though the air around me had hardened and was forcing me backwards to the floor. All the while, the noise was still going on and all I was really aware of was being cut by everything flying around me, much as I flew around everything else until I hit the rear wall and landed hard enough for my breathing to stop.
Then I didn’t know what happened. The loudness was followed by an incredible softness, as though something had popped in front of me. No sound at all, nothing to see but blackness and an awful smell, chemicals and alcohol and dust that seemed to swirl into my nose and down to my chest until I was coughing and retching around a pain that made my ribs snag onto my lungs.
I stayed where I was and gradually sensation started to come back. First to arrive was sight. Pinpricks of light swam from the blackness and coalesced into shapes, swinging and dancing until Ifelt sick. Then came hearing, slowly, slowly building credible sound out of the receding silence. Finally, touch returned, all sensation at once, so that I could feel a bruising kind of numbness everywhere and an oddly sharp something sticking into my cheek. I was breathing, but every breath came out with a moan accompaniment.
Then I heard the screaming, alarms ringing, something cracking and voices. Lots of voices, shouting. Emergency lighting came on, bathing the whole scene in a sickly green glow that made it look like the inside of a spaceship that has had to make a hurried landing in a swamp. Someone was crying but my ears still weren’t operating properly and I couldn’t triangulate where any of the sounds were coming from.
‘Wha’?’ my mouth said, the word coming out with blood.
I was down on the floor, the wreckage of the table barricading me against the wall, and broken glass scattered over everything like a parody of snow.
‘Wha’?’ my mouth said again.
And there was Flynn, upright but with his shirt torn to tatters and blood pouring down his face, kicking his way towards me through the rubble. In the nauseous lighting he looked like the Incredible Hulk, bathed in the green glow. ‘Fee!’ I knew he was shouting but my hearing was still muffling everything, so it sounded as though he was calling from a very long way off. ‘Fee!’
People were staggering to their feet or sliding themselves up the furniture to sit. I saw Fraser, a heroic trail of blood running from his hairline down the side of his face, moving some splintered wood off a body which lay huddled in the centre of the floor. It was Wren, that calm part of my mind that was watching everything going on from a hidden place, told me. Wren, unmoving and small.
